NEWS

Steven J. Reisman, co-chair of Curtis’ Restructuring and Insolvency practice group, was quoted by Law360 about the significance of the Supreme Court’s June 15 ruling in Baker Botts LLP et al. v. Asarco LLC that bankruptcy attorneys cannot be reimbursed for the money spent defending their legal fees from attack.

Mr. Reisman said that “The Supreme Court’s decision leaves professionals open to wasteful challenges and may be used by some as leverage in the underlying case. One hopes that this decision will be limited to true fee-defense litigation between the professionals and the administrator of the bankruptcy estate. Estate professionals are complying with the Bankruptcy Code by filing and defending their fee applications. The Supreme Court has now made defending the fee application a non-compensable cost of practicing bankruptcy law – and, in my view, is not what Congress had intended.”